


somewhere i don't belong

by dumbkili



Category: Tuck Everlasting (Musical)
Genre: A bit sad, Character Study, Discussions of death, Grief, Humor, Miles-Centric, Post-Canon, Suicidal Ideation, at least i'd like to think so, modern-ish? more modern than the musical anyway lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7294249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbkili/pseuds/dumbkili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse had a child’s laugh, and Miles had a broken heart. They were just… different that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	somewhere i don't belong

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe i had to be the first person to write for this musical

“C’mon c’mon c’mon _c’mon!_ We’re gonna miss the bus!” Miles sighed quietly and allowed himself to be pulled along through the crowded bus station behind his brother. 185 years had done nothing for Jesse’s patience, and it was no use protesting anymore. Nevermind that the bus didn’t leave for another thirty minutes. No, Jesse had to get there _first_ , or he’d act like they hadn’t gotten there at all.

 

You’d think he was worried about running out of time.

 

Sure enough, they ended up being the first passengers on board the Greyhound bus bound for Treegap, New Hampshire. The year was 1975 and it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining down on the pavement outside of the windows, reflecting off of car bumpers and pedestrians’ jewelry. Jesse spent the first half of the trip with his face pressed against the window like he was five years old, nudging Miles whenever he saw a particularly interesting car or a passing dog or whatever else it was that happened to catch his eye.

 

The driver smiled at them when the bus had stopped to refuel and they’d gone outside for some fresh air. She had streaks of gray in her hair and crow’s feet around her warm eyes and Miles looked away while Jesse struck up conversation with her. He heard her say the words “nice young man” and fought the urge to laugh. Jesse had been alive when her grandmother was born and he’d be still alive when she herself died. Nothing was young about him anymore except for his face. And maybe his laugh. Jesse still had the laugh of a child, something Miles had lost more than a century ago. He was lucky that way.

 

“Did you figure out where we’re staying tonight?” he asked as the bus pulled onto the highway again. Normally he’d have been the one with the plans, but this trip had been Jesse’s idea. Let him deal with the nitpicky stuff- Miles was just there to make sure nothing exploded, which tended to happen when Jesse was left on his own. At least, that’s why he assumed he was there. He actually didn’t really know. He was still in the dark about why they were even going to Treegap in the first place.

 

“Um?” Jesse said, scratching his ear. “I was thinking we were just gonna crash at Ma and Pa’s old place. It’s still up.”

 

Miles groaned. “Jesse. Are you serious? Nobody’s been there since-” He cut himself off sharply. The real end of that sentence was 1893, but there were other passengers on the bus. “Since _Winnie_ ,” he settled on saying, and didn’t miss the twitch of Jesse’s eyebrows that stopped before it could fully become a frown. It was technically true, anyway. They’d visited once many years ago, to see her grave, but they hadn’t stayed the night. This trip was apparently going to be different.

 

“I know, but it’s fine. It’s been sealed since we left. All of our stuff’s still in there. Probably.” Jesse avoided making eye contact, choosing instead to look back out the window. “I don’t have the dough for a hotel anyway, even if Treegap _had_ one.”

 

“Okay,” Miles conceded. “Point.” Then he made a face. “Wait. Didn’t we leave _food_ in there?”

 

“Oh geez,” Jesse murmured, but he still didn’t provide an alternate option. Miles readjusted his estimation for how shit this trip was going to be from “bad” to “if I could die, this would kill me”. Three days in a rotting cabin full of bad food and moth eaten furniture with his brother and no one to buffer their arguments. Fantastic.

 

“Remind me why we’re even doing this,” he said flatly. Jesse shrugged one shoulder, still not looking at him.

 

“Just, you know, to catch up. See what’s new. What’s happening. Who’s doing what. Check on the spring. Whole boatload of reasons, really, when you think about it,” he replied in a rush, his right leg bouncing slightly. Miles narrowed his eyes. This was _textbook_ ‘Jesse’s Lying’ behavior.

 

“Uh-huh. That all? You got something on your mind?”

 

“Don’t use your dad voice on me.”

 

“I- That is absurd. I don’t have a _dad voice_.”

 

“You do, and using words like ‘absurd’ isn’t helping your argument,” said Jesse pointedly.

 

“I just want to know what’s going _on_ with you, Jesse. You call me out of nowhere after five years of nothing and say you wanna go back to Treegap with _me_? Just like that? And I show up and you don’t even have a solid plan for where we’re going to _sleep_? I just- I think I’m entitled to some curiosity.” Miles snapped his mouth shut and let out a long breath through his nose. That was the longest speech he’d made in a while, especially to Jesse.

 

Jesse hesitated, then sat up straighter for a second. “Listen, man, I just… I wanted to do this trip with you because… I don’t know. We never see each other, and it makes Ma sad. She says so in her letters. I’m getting guilt tripped by my mom from halfway across the country and it’s bad for my morale.”

 

“Wow. Heartwarming,” Miles said dryly, crossing his arms tighter around his chest. Nervous habit. They both had a lot of those.

 

“Yeah, so. That’s why we’re going. That is the reason.” Jesse didn’t wait for Miles’ reply before closing his eyes and doing a very good impression of someone deeply asleep.

 

“You’re a bad liar.”

 

“Shh. I’m sleeping.”

 

▲▲▲

 

A few hours later, the bus pulled into Treegap. The sun was starting to set, tinging the edge of the horizon pinkish-red and giving the town a strangely dreamlike feeling. Miles didn’t like it. People started filing off of the bus and out into the hot summer air, but Jesse wasn’t moving. Miles nudged him.

 

“Wha-,” he yawned. “What time is it?”

 

“Oh my god. Did you _actually_ fall asleep?”

 

“Shut up, man.” Jesse rubbed his eyes blearily and stood up, then bent back down to look out the window. “Damn. Town hasn’t changed much.”

 

“We were literally _just_ here,” Miles pointed out, grabbing his duffel bag from the overhead rack. “Remember?”

 

“That was a decade ago, Miles,” Jesse said. “You’d think _something_ would be different.” They were moving down the aisle now, and the bus driver smiled at them again as they hopped out onto the pavement. “Everything’s the same! I swear I’ve seen that cloud before.”

 

“Don’t be dramatic.”

 

“Don’t be a killjoy.”

 

Miles bit back his response and instead opted to heave his bag higher on his shoulder and use his longer legs to pull away from Jesse, moving down the road towards the Foster’s wood. He heard an indignant squawking sound behind him and then Jesse caught up, nearly at a jog.

 

“You- you see, this… this is being a killjoy, Miles.”

 

“Can we just focus on getting to the cabin, please? I’m tired.”

 

Jesse rolled his eyes. “Pfft, relax. A little sleepiness won’t kill you.” _Thanks for the reminder_ , Miles thought, but said nothing. Then Jesse’s bag croaked.

 

Miles stopped walking. “Jesse. You didn’t bring that frog, did you?” Jesse was already rummaging into his backpack for the source of the noise.

 

“Okay, first of all, he’s not a frog. He is a _toad_.” Jesse proudly produced said toad and held him up so Miles could really take in all the damp-skinned, empty-eyed details. “And he’s _my_ toad and I love him so you can fuck right off.” The toad croaked again, blinking very slowly, one eye at a time. Miles wrinkled up his nose. “Aw!” exclaimed Jesse. “He loves you!”

 

“It’s a toad, Jesse.”

 

“An _immortal_ toad who _loves_ you!” Jesse started walking again, the toad cradled gently in his hands.

 

“It’s going to pee on you.”

 

“Stop ruining the moment I’m having with this amphibian, Miles Tuck.”

 

▲▲▲

 

When they finally got to the cabin, the sun had fully set. Miles’ feet ached from walking through the woods in the wrong kind of shoes, and he just wanted to lie down. Jesse seemed to be having no such problems, probably due to the nap he’d taken on the bus. They (Miles, Jesse, and the toad) stood for a moment, staring at the slightly warped wooden building. There were scratches of graffiti along the outside walls of it, and a couple of broken windows. Beer bottles and cigarette butts decorated the porch. However, the front door was still intact, and relatively untouched. The shiny padlock they’d installed on their last visit glinted silver in the dim light.

 

“You have keys, right?” Miles asked, scuffing some glass shards off the porch step with one shoe. “I don’t feel like breaking in.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” said Jesse, digging into his pants pockets with the hand that wasn’t full of toad. “Hey, could you hold him for a second? I think they’re in my bag.” He didn’t wait for an answer before he shoved the toad into Miles’ hands. It gave a mournful ribbit.

 

“Me too,” Miles said to it, then immediately wondered why on earth he was talking to a damn _toad_. And a slimy one at that.

 

Jesse popped back up, holding the keys aloft. “There we are!”

 

“Just open it already so I don’t have to hold this thing anymore.”

 

“You love him, admit it.”

 

“I don’t.”

 

Jesse made a disbelieving sound and sprung up the porch steps to unlock the padlock. It hit the floor with a dull _thunk_ , and the door swung open. They both peered into the blackness cautiously. Then Jesse stepped forward into it.

 

“Hm. Doesn’t smell like rotten food at least. Must have just been some canned stuff that got left behind.”

 

“Or maybe it’s been so long that all the food rotted away to nothing. That’s plausible, right?” Miles asked, following. The cabin didn’t smell rotten, but it did smell musty. The air was too still, like in a museum. Everything was nearly untouched. They had had to leave most of their stuff behind when they left Treegap, out of practicality, so the shelves were still covered in knickknacks and the furniture was all mostly in place, albeit a little worse for wear.

 

“This place is a historian’s dream,” Jesse said, examining the tea kettle still on the woodburning stove. “I’m surprised nobody’s actually broken in here yet.” He seemed to find the kettle suitable and slipped the toad into it. It made a plopping sound in the metal container.

 

“Well, it doesn’t look too great on the outside. Maybe people think it’s empty, or a storage shed, or something.” Miles dropped his bag on Pa’s favorite chair, the reclining one that was practically a bed. A cloud of dust poofed up and he coughed sharply. “Ugh. Place is filthy.”

 

“Can’t be helped.”

 

Miles watched him fiddle around in the kitchen for a few more seconds before he asked, “What are we _doing_ here, Jesse?”

 

“Well, like I said, we _do_ need to check on the spring,” Jesse said after a beat. “And I wanna see… nevermind.” He pressed his lips tightly together like he hadn’t meant to let that last sentence escape.

 

“...Wanna see what?” Miles looked at him, waiting, but he didn’t say anything else. “Jesse. Why are we really doing this?”

 

It was in moments like this when Miles was reminded that Jesse was still really 17. He could sometimes carry himself like an adult, if he really tried, and he definitely had more life experience than was normal for any 17 year old to have, but at the end of the day he would always look like a teenager. That’s what he was, ultimately. He was hunched over where he stood, brow furrowed, one hand deep in his jacket pocket, and the other tapping on the tabletop, staring down at his banged up sneakers like they contained the answers to every moral dilemma in the cosmos. Miles waited for him to work it out.

 

“Winnie, okay? I wanna see Winnie,” Jesse finally said in a sudden burst of volume. “I saw the Berlin Wall a couple months ago and I thought she’d like to hear about it. I wanna know what she thinks.” He took a breath. “And I was telling the truth earlier, about why I wanted you to come along. Ma’s worried we’re growing apart again.”

 

Miles looked at him. He’d been expecting something along those lines, but he hadn’t really thought Jesse would have gone through all of this trouble just for _that_.  “Winnie’s _dead_ , Jesse.” Immediately he wished he hadn’t said it. It had sounded too harsh, which was always his damn problem. He usually ended up sounding more acerbic than he intended to be, and nearly every time he did, Jesse took him the wrong way. It was why they never got along these days.

 

“I _know_ she’s dead,” Jesse snapped back at him. _Here we go again_. “Of course I know that. I just wanted to see her, is all.”

 

“She’s _gone_ is my point, Jesse. You can’t see her anymore. All you can do is talk to a gravestone.” He didn’t know why he was pushing this. Maybe it was because Winnie and death were two subjects he got very touchy about.

 

“Maybe she knows when we visit, though.”

 

“You don’t know that that’s true.”

 

“You don’t know it isn’t!”

 

Miles sighed. Winnie was dead, yes, and his ex-wife was too and so was Thomas by this point. And so was Winnie’s husband and her mother and her grandmother and her father. And his family’s horse and Jesse’s first girlfriend back when he was fifteen and a million other people. People _died_. It’s what they _did_. Except for the Tucks. There was no use overthinking it or nitpicking it or shoving forward improbable _what-if_ scenarios. Dead was dead and the living remained. They’d drive themselves crazy trying to figure out what they were missing, get too caught up in things that would never be- like seeing Winnie again.

 

“Jesse. You need to let this go, okay? You need to move on and do something different, something to distract yourself. I mean- it’s been _years_ since she died. Decades since you even _saw_ her last! I don’t understand why you’re still doing this.” He knew he was being nasty, but he couldn’t stop. The ball was already rolling. “It was stupid to come here and even stupider to ask me to join you.”

 

“Right, yeah,” Jesse said, laughing brokenly, his voice catching a little bit. “Stupid, selfish Jesse Tuck, that’s me! Sorry for just wanting to visit the grave of the first person outside of this _fucking_ family that ever gave a damn about _me_ and who I _am_.”

 

He didn’t understand why Jesse was so latched onto this idea, this concept. _Miles_ didn’t get obsessed with dead people. _Miles_ moved on and never spoke his son’s name out loud and repressed his grief like a _normal person_. If he let himself really feel loss the way Jesse did, he’d never get anything done. He’d lost more than his brother ever had or ever would, and grieving every single person in his life, up to _and including_ Winnie Foster, would leave him a wreck. Losing his wife and Thomas alone had already nearly destroyed him, and that had been more than a century ago. He did not allow himself to think about the dead, even though he wanted to.

 

Jesse did, though. He and Miles were so different with how they handled grief, with how they tried to heal. Jesse kept his child’s laugh and the spring in his step and he wanted to _talk_ about his losses, to _confront_ them and work through them out loud with others. That just wasn’t how Miles did things, which was why Jesse had had to lie to get Miles to come on this trip.

 

God, it made him feel… almost sad, in a weird way. He was the older brother here, right? How did it get to the point where subterfuge was the only way to get them to spend time together? Shouldn’t he be the one to reach out to _Jesse_ , to see if he was okay, to help him feel better? But no. That wasn’t what he did, that wasn’t how he and Jesse worked. Jesse had a child’s laugh, and Miles had a broken heart. They were just… different that way.

 

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, that would alleviate the tension between them. All that came out was, “I need to sleep.” He picked his bag back up and turned on his heel, leaving Jesse standing in the kitchen with that damn toad and clicking the door shut to the only other room in the house besides the attic. He and Jesse and their parents had shared this bedroom once upon a time, before Miles got his farmhouse and Jesse found his love of traveling. It was small for four people and too big for one. There were no sheets or blankets on the bed anymore, and weeds were growing in a corner that was probably exposed to sunlight during the day.

 

Miles sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing himself to calm down. This was a disaster. He had known it would be when Jesse first suggested it to him, but this was one of those times where he was not happy to be right. Eventually his breaths slowed and he could feel himself starting to relax in millimeters, frustration and anger bleeding out of him and into the warm summer air.

 

He considered sleeping on the bed, but the old mattress looked distinctly moldy and worn out, so instead he stretched out on the floor with his bag under his head. He’d slept in worse places for sure, and if he couldn’t get to sleep, so what? Exhaustion wouldn’t kill him, it would just slow him down a little bit. At first he lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling and the cracked beams above his head, but eventually the uneven floor and the moonlight from the window faded out of his awareness, and he drifted off.

 

▲▲▲

 

Miles had a dream that he was back at his farmhouse, trying to explain time to a child that looked a little bit like Thomas, and a little bit like Jesse, and a little bit like Winnie. He wasn’t surprised; he’d had this dream before.

 

“The big hand tells you what minute it is,” he heard himself explain, although he hadn’t decided to speak, “and the small one shows the hour. They move around and point to the time. That’s how you know when to do things, like eat and sleep and do chores.”

 

“Why do they call them hands? They just look like sticks.” Miles smiled at the simple, yet completely unexpected question, the kind that was so typical of children.

 

“It’s just a strange thing people say. I don’t know how it started. Maybe it’s because they point to things.”

 

“Oh. I _guess_ that makes sense. But Miles,” said the child (and they sounded more like Jesse than the other two), “The hands aren’t moving.”

 

“Well, they move slowly, don’t they?” he replied, turning to look at the grandfather clock. “If you just wait, the big one will move again. And if you wait long enough the small one follows.” He stood from where he had been sitting on the floor and tapped the 12 at the top of the clock’s face. “They meet up here, at noon and midnight.”

 

“Isn’t midnight the end of the day?” asked the child, sounding more like Winnie now. “It’s sad that they only meet twice, and once is at the very end.”

 

“Yes,” said Miles softly. “Yes, it’s a bit sad, I suppose. But it’s a circle, you know. So they keep meeting every day, even if it’s only twice. And midnight is the beginning, technically.”

 

“I think that’s beautiful,” said the child in Thomas’ voice, and Miles woke up.

 

▲▲▲

 

He opened his eyes the next morning to Jesse knocking on the bedroom door.

 

“Hey, uh, Miles? It’s Jesse. Which you probably already knew. I kinda let you sleep in. I ran into town and got some food from the diner. It’s, um, it’s on the table.” A pause. “It’s pancakes.” Another pause. “Are you awake yet?”

 

“...Yeah. I’m awake.” Miles sat up and felt a twinge of annoyance because despite the awkward position he’d slept in, there was no pain in his neck or back at all. It was the little things related to physical invincibility that usually ticked him off the most. Stupid water.

 

“Okay, cool, please come out and eat these pancakes now,” Jesse said, his voice too loud even through the door. “They’re a badly disguised peace offering.”

 

Miles felt the corners of his mouth starting to smile against his will. Jesse always did stuff like this after a big argument. It was kind of endearing, even if you were still mad at him.

 

“Thanks. I’ll be out in a sec.” He heard Jesse’s sigh of relief and footsteps walking back towards the kitchen, and then the croak of the toad. He stood up and stretched, even though he didn’t really need it, and brushed the dust off of his clothes. They would be fine to eat breakfast in, and then he could change. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

 

Jesse was sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in, dripping water from a paper cup onto his toad, which seemed to be enjoying itself. There was a take-out box of pancakes in front of the only other usable chair. Miles sat down into it suddenly and Jesse jumped, surprised.

 

“You scared me!”

“Please tell me that toad did not touch my food.”

 

“Relax,” Jesse said, sprinkling more water onto the toad. “He’s got manners.” The toad croaked in a rare act of appropriate comedic timing. Jesse picked it up and carried it back over to the tea kettle, putting it inside and pouring the remaining water on top of it.

 

“Is that safe?” Miles asked. “Can toads drown?”

 

“In general, I don’t know,” replied Jesse, peering into the kettle. “But this is spring water, and the toad was already immortal, so it definitely can’t.”

 

Miles froze with a bite of pancake halfway to his mouth. “The _water_ didn’t touch my food either, right?”

 

Jesse rolled his eyes. “No. Not that it would actually _do_ anything to you.”

 

“It would make the pancakes soggy. Or immortal. I don’t want immortal pancakes.” Miles finally started eating for real, cutting the pancakes up into even pieces and forgoing the syrup. “Huh. These are actually pretty good.”

 

“Well, they better be,” Jesse said with a weak smile. “Since they’re, uh, apology pancakes and all that. Did they work?”

 

Miles shrugged vaguely, taking another bite. “I’m still kind of mad at you.” Jesse visibly deflated and Miles instantly felt like a shithead again. “I mean, I’m not as mad as I _was_ , but… you have to give me time. To be mad.” He shrugged again. “It won’t be forever, but give me some time.” They had enough of _that_ , after all.

 

Jesse nodded once, then twice, then multiple times very quickly. “Okay. Okay, that’s cool. Um. I don’t wanna start any more fights, so… I’m gonna… go…” He scooped the tea kettle up in one hand and started backing out of the cabin. “See ya.”

 

“Jesse-”

 

“Be back later! Bye!” The cabin door swung shut with a creak and a bang and Miles sighed. Suddenly the pancakes looked a lot less appealing, but he picked at them anyway. Jesse would want him to.

 

This was why the two of them being alone together was a stupid idea. They were just… incompatible people nowadays. They had forgotten each other’s language, or else Miles had learned a new one that Jesse couldn’t pick up. The saddest thing was that it hadn’t always been like this between them- they used to actually be _friends_ , and not just brothers loosely connected by happenstance and blood. Jesse had been at his wedding, had seen Thomas’ first steps, had had inside jokes with Miles’ wife. He’d been an uncle and a brother-in-law and a _friend_ , back when they both still thought they were normal.

 

▲▲▲

 

They had found out because Jesse fell out of a tree. He fell out of a tree and landed on his head in front of everyone. In front of Thomas. His neck should have snapped like a dry twig, but he immediately stood up like nothing had happened. Like nothing was wrong. He was thirty-five and still looking seventeen and that was the day they all truly realized how odd that was.

 

Miles woke up to an empty house less than a month later. Once he figured out what had happened, he’d sat there in his kitchen for hours, just staring into space. Jesse came over that evening like he did nearly every day and instead of his brother found a different and more broken man. A man who had lost _everything_ , who could never tell anyone the depth of what he felt because he didn’t have the words.

 

That was where they had slipped away from each other. Jesse, in finding out he was immortal, managed to keep the positives in his sights and his spirits optimistic. He was always more excited about the novelty of it, more entranced by the doors the water had opened. Miles tended to focus on the ones that had been closed.

 

What it boiled down to, Miles mused as he ate his cold pancakes, was that Jesse sometimes shot himself for fun. Miles usually did it in the hopes that it would finally work.

 

▲▲▲

 

“Hiya, Winnie. How’ve you been? Me ‘n Miles are in town for the next couple of days, so I thought I’d visit you a bit. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Not much is different from the last time I was here, though. There’s some new models of cars, I think? ...Oh! Uh, I’ve been traveling a bunch, like always, ha, and I saw some cool things that I thought you’d like to hear about. There’s, um, the Berlin Wall, and- whoa, Winnie, they landed on the _moon_ , can you believe it? I watched it on TV myself! It was so cool! And it got me thinking- I should be an astronaut. It’d be cheaper to use me, since they don’t have to spend all that money on a fancy suit or anything, you know? ‘Course, it’d be kinda lonely up there, I think.”

 

▲▲▲

 

Miles finished his pancakes and changed into a clean set of clothes, then stood in the center of the cabin at a loss. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He didn’t know where Jesse was (although he had some guesses), and he didn’t have anything or anyone left to see in this town to take up his time. But the prospect of staying in the old house for the entire day was distinctly unappealing, so he trudged out into woods towards town.

 

It took a long time to get there, since he purposefully skirted around both Winnie’s old house and the spring. By the time he entered the town proper, dark grey stormclouds were gathering in the sky, and the smell of rain was in the air. Chlorophyll and dust particles and water. He looked around for some place he could go if and when it started to pour, but the only place near him was a dingy looking coffee shop.

 

“Screw it,” he muttered. He had a couple quarters in his pocket. Should be enough for a black coffee. He didn’t particularly _want_ one, but it would give him something to do.

 

It turned out to be a good decision, because as soon as he stepped inside, the clouds split open and it _rained_. Good, strong rain, the kind that made Miles feel soaked even though he was indoors. He thought about the holes in the cabin ceiling and his duffle bag on the floor underneath one and groaned quietly. Great.

 

“Hello, what would you like to order?” asked the waitress once he’d taken a seat at one of the three rickety tables. She looked barely older than Jesse did, but, again, she was really so much younger.

 

“Just a black coffee please,” he said, smiling tightly at her and then looking back out into the street and the rain. There was a small figure running towards the coffee shop with its jacket hunched up over its head in a makeshift umbrella, canvas sneakers slapping against the pavement. The waitress handed him a mug.

 

“Can I getcha any milk or sugar?”

 

“No thanks,” he said. “It’s fine like this.”

 

The bell jingled as the door opened and the soaking wet figure from outside stepped in. Miles didn’t even bother looking up. He just hoped they didn’t try to sit at the table next to him.

 

“Hello, what would you like to order?”

 

“Um… do you have hot chocolate?” It was a kid, maybe around ten or eleven years old. Miles’ grip on his mug tightened. The waitress laughed behind him.

 

“We sure do. It’s a bit more expensive than coffee though, especially if you want whipped cream.” Miles could practically hear the gears turning in the kid’s head as he processed this information.

 

“Um… okay… I have two quarters,” said the kid. There was a clink of coins as he put them on the table. The waitress clicked her tongue.

 

“A hot chocolate is sixty-five cents.”

 

“Oh. How much do I have?”

 

“Fifty.”

 

“Oh.” The disappointment in the kid’s voice was palpable. Water was dripping audibly from his clothes and pooling on the floor. Even without turning around, Miles could tell he was shivering. Before he even knew what he was doing he had stood up, hand already digging into his pocket for his last dime and nickel.

 

“I can spot him fifteen,” he said, setting the coins on the counter to join the kid’s quarters. “He’s soaked.” The waitress, whose nametag read _Helen_ , raised an eyebrow slightly, but took the money anyway and swept it into the register.

 

“Alright then. One hot chocolate comin’ up for the kiddo over here.” She turned away from the two of them and Miles started to walk back to his seat, only to be stopped by a very soggy hand on his shirt hem.

 

“Hey mister, thanks for doing that. My dad didn’t know how much it was gonna be so when I left the house he musta given me the wrong amount of money.”

 

Miles looked down at the boy. “Don’t worry about it, it’s no-” He stopped, too caught up in realizing what he was looking at. Light brown hair. Gap tooth. Spray of freckles across the nose. Dark eyes. Thomas’ eyes. The same height, a similar build. He was gaping, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

 

The kid frowned up at him. “Are you okay?”

 

Miles blinked, shook himself out of it. “Yeah, yeah, sorry. Um.” His throat was dry. “What’s your name, kid?”

 

“Benjamin. But everyone just calls me Benji.” He looked pretty proud of that for whatever reason, like a nickname was something unique and to be appreciated. Probably didn’t have any siblings, or else he’d feel differently; Jesse still called Miles ‘Kilometers’ sometimes.

 

“Well,” said Miles, bending down to his level a little bit and holding out a hand to shake, “it’s very nice to meet you, Benji.”

 

The kid giggled a little bit at the strangely formal greeting, but shook his hand anyway. His laugh was too familiar, and Miles’ stomach did flip-flops at the sound. It was Thomas’ laugh. He would recognize it anywhere, in any decade. This child had Thomas’ eyes and Thomas’ laugh. Did that mean he was who Miles thought he was? There was no way to ask without confusing the boy or scaring him. The only thing he could do was speculate.

 

Helen, the waitress, bustled out from behind the counter with a mug that appeared to have an entire can of whipped cream in it. Benji’s eyes turned round as saucers and as he climbed onto the seat she had placed it in front of, he seemed torn between thanking her, thanking Miles, and just digging in. Eventually he settled on the third option. Miles and the waitress made eye contact over his head and she winked at him.

 

“I put a little extra whipped cream in.”

 

“I can see that,” Miles said, taking another sip of his coffee. She turned back towards the counter, then looked back at him.

 

“Are you _sure_ you don’t wanna put anything else in that?” she asked. “I’ve had the coffee here and I _know_ that can’t taste good.”

 

Miles shook his head. “Really. I’m fine.” He was just killing time anyway. Didn’t matter if there was sugar in his coffee- which he didn’t even like. Besides, now he had other things on his mind than a little bitterness.

 

The boy. Benjamin. He was Thomas’- and therefore Miles’ own- descendant, or else genetics was playing an enormous prank on him. Either way, it was really freaking him out. What were the odds that he would meet this boy here, in Treegap, where everything started and Miles’ life had, in its own way, ended? How on earth had they run into each other like this, in the same cramped coffee shop on the same rainy day? It was just more evidence that this trip had been a colossal mistake. As if he was looking for more reminders of everything he’d lost. First he’d had to think about Winnie, now Thomas. What was next- that horse they’d had?

 

The rain grew heavier.

 

▲▲▲

 

“I’m sad that you left so soon, Winn. We could have seen the world! The pyramids, the Great Wall, the moon landing… We would have had so much _fun_ , Winnie Foster. Um. Well. No, that’s… You had fun, actually. You fell in love, you had children, you _lived_. You were probably right to make that decision, if I’m being honest. The water… drinking it really sucks, in the long term. It… changes you. It changed Miles, definitely. You should have seen him in his twenties! I mean, you think you did, but you didn’t. He was a lot more like me back then, I think. But. Um. Even _I_ changed, after we drank it. I really don’t know how, but I can feel it. So I’m glad you didn’t drink it, in the end. Because you would have changed, too. Eventually. And you wouldn’t have been Winnie Foster anymore.”

 

▲▲▲

 

The boy- Benjamin- finished his hot chocolate in what was probably record time, right down to the grains of chocolate powder at the bottom. He had it smeared partially across his face, right over the wide smile he wore as he thanked Miles again for the fifteen cents.

 

“It was really nice of you!” His hair was starting to curl as it dried. Miles smiled back at him, and for once it didn’t feel forced.

 

“It’s really no problem. Just make sure your dad knows how much a hot chocolate _really_ costs before he sends you next time, huh?” The kid nodded vigorously.

 

“Yup, I will! He’s picking me up from here actually. We’re going to Connecticut to visit my gran!”

 

Miles looked out at the street, which seemed to have aspirations of becoming a river. “In this weather? Are you sure?” As he watched, a station wagon carefully pulled up to the curb on the opposite side of the road, and honked the horn a few times. Benji made a sound of excitement.

 

“That’s my dad! I gotta go,” he said, then quickly turned around to wave goodbye to the waitress. “Bye mister! And thanks again.” The bell on the door jingled as he opened it and ran back out into the storm. Miles watched him go, confusion and sadness and amusement mixing in him like the world’s worst cocktail. He tapped his knuckles absently on the table a few times, then came to a decision. He needed to get out of here. Maybe go back to that stifling cabin, if only to be alone so he could _process_ this.

 

“Thanks for the coffee,” he called over his shoulder, standing and leaving the store. The rain hit him like cold bullets, and the sky was as dark as night. Benji was standing on the street corner waiting for the light to change from red to green so he could cross, even though there weren’t any cars visible on the road aside from the station wagon. As he saw Miles passing by, he gave a little wave and then stepped into the road as the light finally changed.

 

He didn’t see the headlights rounding the corner too fast to slow down. Miles did.

 

▲▲▲

 

“I’m jealous of you. You got… everything I ever wanted, really. Everything Miles lost, you got to keep. I’m not angry, I just wish things had been different. ‘Course, if they had been- if I’d lived a normal life like you did, we’d have never met. I would have died before you were born. Geez, that’s a weird thought. But. Um. It’s true, I guess. … Even though it sounds mean, I think it might have been better that way. Miles could have been happy, for one. I could have been an uncle, and then maybe a father. I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far. Never really got around to that after the spring, anyways. Nobody wants to marry a 17 year old, much less a guy in his 180s. Uh. But at least I’ve got this toad!”

 

▲▲▲

 

The car swerved around the corner, tires skidding for purchase on the wet road. Miles caught a split second glimpse of the driver through the windshield, their eyes wide and their mouth stretched into a big O, and before he knew it he was moving. Running. Practically sprinting, even.

 

The whole thing only took about fifteen seconds. Miles saw the car, saw the driver, ran towards Benji, still crossing the street, just barely starting to turn over his shoulder towards the skidding noise of the car against the pavement. No time to shout and even if there was, there was no time for the boy to get out of the way on his own.

 

Miles pushed him.

 

▲▲▲

 

“Ah geez… It’s really coming down hard now… Ugh. Should have brought an umbrella. I’m always fucking up. Sorry for cursing, but it’s true. ...I messed up bringing Miles back here instead of just coming alone. He’s mad at me again. Actually, I don’t think I can say _again_ because he never really stopped in the first place. But… I don’t know. I wanted him to be here. I wanted to see him again. He’s my big brother, you know? And we used to get along so well. I guess I just still have this idea that one day we’re gonna go back to the way we were. Before everything.”

 

▲▲▲

 

The front bumper of the car hit him in the abdomen and the sudden force of it threw him backwards, skidding down the street on his back. He could feel his jacket ripping against the friction of the asphalt, and water soaking into his pants. But no pain. Not even a fucking car was enough to hurt him. Unsurprising, but still minorly disappointing. He felt raindrops on his face and he blinked, the slate gray of the sky and several darker silhouettes above him coming into focus.

 

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Are you okay? Christ. Oh my god.” An adult voice- either the driver of the car or the father who had been waiting in the station wagon. There was a hand on his shoulder and he shrugged it off, sitting upright while faking a large wince and gingerly touching his left ribs. The frantic adult continued speaking, which was beginning to annoy him more than being hit by a car. “This is terrible, oh my lord. Can you breathe? Can you speak? Do you need one of us to call an ambulance. Oh, you probably do. That thing really knocked you, man.”

 

“I’m fine,” Miles said sharply. “Looks worse than it is.”

 

“Then it must still be pretty damn bad,” said the man, and Miles turned to look at him. Mid-thirties. Darkish hair, darkish eyes. Definitely Benjamin’s father, although he looked less like Thomas than his son did. Benji would probably grow out of those features as well. “That car threw you fifteen feet at _least_.”

 

“I said,” Miles snapped, finally getting his feet underneath himself, “I’m _fine_.” He stood up straight, and found that he had a good three or four inches on the other man. _Huh. Family got shorter._ The man looked beyond confused, taking in Miles’ now-tattered clothes and soaking wet hair and lack of any obvious outward injuries. “Thanks for your concern.”

 

Another man, presumably the driver of the car, began apologizing profusely, but Miles held up a hand to stop him.

 

“I’m not pressing charges. I’m not hurt. Don’t worry about it, okay? Accidents happen.” He felt a familiar tug on his shirt and looked down at Benji, who, besides a scrape on his forearm, appeared to be okay.

 

“Are you a superhero?” he asked, eyes wide. Miles smiled and shook his head.

 

“No. I’m just… me.” He shrugged a little bit. “I don’t have powers. Sorry, kid.” He looked around. More people were starting to approach the scene of the accident, murmuring and shooting him concerned looks. This was bad. This was very public. He needed to get out of here. Now. He bent down to Benji’s level and offered him a handshake again. “Lovely to meet you, kiddo. Although I doubt we’ll be seeing much of each other after this.” The boy shook his hand and he straightened back up. “Goodbye.” _Goodbye, Thomas. Looks like you had the life I didn’t. You and Winnie can start a club._

 

He heard people calling out behind him as he walked away, shouts of ‘hey!’ and ‘mister!’ echoing down the rainy street. Nobody followed him, however. Nobody dared, maybe. He didn’t look back.

 

▲▲▲

 

Without even thinking about it, he started walking towards the graveyard. The rain ran down the back of his shirt and soaked him to the core, pooling in his shoes and turning his socks into sponges. Truly awful. But ultimately unimportant. He just wanted to get away from the people, away from their questions, find Jesse, and get the hell out of town.

 

He’d never fucked up this badly before. Jesse was the impulsive one, the one who was always most likely to blow their cover. Hell, Jesse had started the whole mess back in 1893 when he met Winnie by the spring. Now Miles was the one who had exposed his own secret, and he didn’t even know if he was mad at himself.

 

If he hadn’t done anything, the boy would have died. That was a fact. Miles had felt the force of the car as it hit him, had seen how far he’d been flung. If Benji somehow _hadn’t_ died, he would have been paralyzed at the very least. But Miles’ secret would be safe. That child with Thomas’ eyes would have been struck by the car, flung across the pavement like a ragdoll, but Miles would have remained anonymous and unknown. Nobody would wonder about him, ask questions about him. Now the boy was alive, but Miles and Jesse had to leave Treegap. Again. He couldn’t quite bring himself to wish it had gone any other way.

 

When he got to the graveyard it was easy to spot Jesse, a small splotch of color in the middle distance between the gray and white stones. He hesitated for a second before making his way over, watching through the rain, considering his options. It was only when he realized he didn’t actually have any to consider that he started weaving a path between the gravestones towards his brother.

 

“Hey,” he said quietly once he was close enough. Jesse looked up at him.

 

“Oh. Hey Miles.” He was holding the toad in his hands. He was soaked to the bone. “Wait. What _happened_ to you?!”

 

Miles sat down in the grass next to him, not caring about dirt stains. His clothes were already ruined anyway. “Uh. Got hit by a car.”

 

Jesse stared at him. “You’re joking.”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Did people see you?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“...Shit.”

 

Miles sighed. “Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair, staring at the ground. “So. What’ve you been doing?”

 

Jesse shifted uncomfortably. “Just. You know. Talking to Winnie.” He held up the toad. “Showed her that the toad’s still okay. Then it started raining and I should have moved but I didn’t. And I ran out of things to say so the toad’s been doing most of the talking.” A beat of silence. Then: “Are you okay?”

 

Miles looked at him strangely. “Yeah, I’m fine. Not a scratch.”

 

“Not that, jerk. You just seem… upset. Are you still angry with me? It’s been like three whole hours!” Jesse exclaimed, the octave his voice was reaching clearly indicating that he considered this to be a long time. The toad blinked up at them both as if it were following the action. Then Jesse lowered his voice, leaning forward, eyes wide. “Or does it have something to do with the car accident?”

 

Miles almost considered not telling him. It wouldn’t be uncharacteristic of him to lie, or to just ignore the question. He could just say that he was still angry, and that’s why he seemed off. It wasn’t the truth, and Jesse wouldn’t be happy about it, but it would be _simpler_.

 

“I saved a boy’s life.” The words fell out of his mouth like stones, sitting in the grass between them, ugly inanimate things. A confession, of sorts. Miles let out a quiet breath, then tipped his head back towards the sky. “He was walking in the road and I shoved him aside. The car hit me instead of him.”

 

“But that’s good!” Jesse nudged his shoulder excitedly. “You saved a kid’s _life_ , Miles. That’s nothing to be upset about!”

 

“It wasn’t that I saved his life,” Miles said. “Jesse, I think he was related to me.”

 

“...What?”

 

“He looked exactly- _exactly_ like Thomas. It was uncanny. I don’t… I never considered that there would be _descendants_.” He tucked his knees closer to his chest, staring straight out at Winnie’s grave.

 

Jesse huffed out a sigh. “Wow. Neither did I.” He was silent for a second. “But you saved his life, right? That’s still a _good thing_ , Miles.”

 

“It was stupid. Now we have to leave early. Probably can’t risk coming back here for _at least_ forty years.” Miles waited. He stole a glance over to Jesse, who was biting his lip and staring down at his toad. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

 

Jesse looked up. “Like what?”

 

“Like… ‘that was dumb and impulsive and you should have thought about it first.’ Or something.”

 

“You mean like you would say to me if I did this?” asked Jesse with a tiny smile. Then he shook his head. “Nah. I’ve done enough stupid stuff in my life to know that sometimes, you really don’t want other people’s opinions. And personally, I don’t see a problem with saving a kid’s life. Call me crazy, but that’s just how I feel.”

 

“...Huh.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’ve just considered the possibility that you’re a better person than me.”

 

Jesse threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, so you’re just _considering_ it, huh?” He jumped to his feet with the lightness of a teenager and offered a hand to his brother. “C’mon, old man. Let’s grab our gear and get the heck outta Dodge.”

 

“I’m only like five years older than you. And it’s Treegap.”

 

“Killjoy.”

 

▲▲▲

 

They went back to New Hampshire a little more than forty years later as a whole family. Mae wanted to see the old place, Angus swore he forgot his best fishing pole at the cabin, and Jesse (as always) wanted to visit Winnie. Miles was there to stop any sort of catastrophe that might happen. They met up a few states over and took the bus in together, and it was surprisingly peaceful.

 

“Why aren’t you two fighting more?” asked Mae as they got off the bus. “It’s been two hours and you’ve hardly shoved each other once!”

 

“Don’t question it, honey,” Angus said. “Gift horses, and all that.”

 

Jesse shrugged. “Ever since they invented headphones, Miles has been using them as an excuse not to talk to people.”

 

“What?” said Miles, removing one earbud. Jesse laughed.

 

“Nothing, dude.” Without warning he darted forward and snatched Miles’ phone from his back pocket. “What are you even listening to anyway?”

 

“Give that back!”

 

“The Smiths? Dude, seriously?”

 

“ _Jesse!_ ”

 

Angus looked at Mae. “You were saying?”

 

Jesse and Miles eventually calmed down enough to agree to go into town while their parents went to the cabin before meeting them for lunch. It was midmorning and the main street was the Treegap equivalent of bustling. Cute secondhand antique shops (“We’re older than everything in there!”), vintage clothing stores (“I’m being serious when I say I think that’s one of my old coats in the window.”), and tiny cafés (“Who has the _money_ for that?”) had sprung up everywhere they turned.

 

The coffee shop where Miles had met Benjamin was a bodega now, with a man behind the counter who certainly wasn’t the waitress who had worked there in the ‘70s. There was a new streetlamp on the corner where he’d been hit.

 

“This is weird,” Miles said, staring at it.

 

Jesse nodded. “This one time in the forties I got shot in Chicago and the next day I saw the guy in the grocery store.”

 

“What?”

 

“I mean, talk about weird.”

 

“When were you in Chicago?”

 

“In the forties, dude, pay attention.”

 

Miles shook his head in disbelief. “How am I just hearing about this now?”

 

“Because you spend all your time listening to the Smiths like a poser,” laughed Jesse. “C’mon, let’s keep walking.”

 

They were in a flower shop when it happened.

 

“Excuse me,” said a voice from behind Miles, and he turned around. An older man, maybe in his late forties or early fifties. “This might be a strange question but… how old are you?”

 

The lie came easily. “Twenty-three.” He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Who wants to know?”

 

The man looked faintly embarrassed. “Oh, sorry. It’s just that you look very similar to someone I used to know. Well, not _know_ , but… someone I met once. A long time ago, though, so you’re not him.”

 

“I get that a lot,” said Miles, trying to catch Jesse’s eye over the geraniums so that they could make their escape. Why did things like this _always_ happen when they came to Treegap? “Just have a generic kind of face, I guess.”

 

“No, no, I remember,” the man insisted. “He looked _exactly_ like you. He saved my life when I was a kid. Sorry, lord, that sounds so strange. I apologize for bothering you.”

 

 _Oh._ “Um,” Miles stuttered. “Uh, sorry, but- I- I’ve never even been to this town before.” A weird feeling was growing in his stomach, though, and he tried to offer some comfort to the man ( _Benjamin_ ). “Maybe it was my father. I think he used to live in New Hampshire.”

 

“Really now?” Benjamin murmured. “How about that.” He tilted his head slightly to the side. His eyes were the same as his ten year-old self’s, the same as Thomas’. “Funny how genes work out sometimes, isn’t it?”

 

“Yeah,” said Miles, just as quietly. “Funny.” He grabbed a random potted plant from the shelf next to him and quickly walked over to the cash register, desperate to escape the conversation. He didn’t want to do this. He hadn’t been expecting this. The whole point of staying away for forty years was that this _wouldn’t happen_. Underneath the panic, though, there was a strange happiness at being recognized, at the fact that Benjamin had cared enough about him to remember his face for forty years. For mortal people, that was a _long_ time, half of a lifetime. It felt… nice.

 

“What did that guy want?” Jesse asked as they exited the store.

 

“I don’t know,” Miles replied, and held his new plant tighter. It was very leafy, with pink buds. “Hey, do you wanna plant this on Winnie’s grave? I think she’d like it.”

 

Jesse’s eyes lit up. “That sounds like a fantastic idea.”

 

▲▲▲

 

They caught a bus out of town two days later, leaving behind a confused middle-aged man, an empty rundown cabin, and a grave covered in flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> my url on tumblr is deadtucks please come kick my ass


End file.
